Sunday, August 31, 2014

Staunton, August 31 – Seventy three
years after their republic was disbanded by Stalin and 24 years after the two
Germanies were reunited, some of Russia’s remaining Germans have been inspired
by the creation of a Crimean Republic within the Russian Federation to increase
their efforts to restore a German Republic within Russia.

Given the radical decline in the
number of Germans in the Middle Volga – there were more than 400,000 a century
ago but only 1400 remains – some in the city of Engels, which once was the
capital of the German autonomy, are skeptical that anything can be done (http://nazaccent.ru/content/12956-prizrak-respubliki.html).

Dmitry
Reshetov, the director of the Engels Regional Studies Museum, says there are
today no places of “the compact settlement of Germans” and consequently little
basis for a new republic.And Erna
Lavrenova, a local resident, says she is certain that “no republic is needed
here: the old Germans almost don’t remain and new ones aren’t coming.”

Many Russians still believe that the
Russian Germans deserved to be deported because of their supposed sympathy for
and cooperation with the Nazi invaders. But archivist Elizveta Elina says that
despite official demands that she and others find evidence for that idea, no
such evidence has turned up, and she appears to be certain it won’t.

Supporters of the idea of restoring
a German republic in Russia point out that 20 years ago, it appeared that the
idea was of interest “only for specialists,” but then it turned out that not
only ethnic Germans but representatives of the other nationalities among whom
they lived came to believe that it would be a good idea.

“The number of such enthusiasts is
becoming ever greater,” according to Aleksandr Bekker, the leader of the Engels
German Rebirth Society.

Representatives of other nationalities
are backing the idea, Elena Kashtanova, the head of the information office of
the Engels District administration, “above all” because “it is our history” and
because there is no reason “to divide peoples” any more.

She noted that her husband had grown
up in a village called “USA” which stood for “the United States of
Aleksandrovka.” It had a population of 1000 and included Russians, Mordvins,
Kazakhs, Ukrainians and Chuvashes as well as Germans. Representative of 35
different nationalities still live there, she added.

Nonetheless, some officials believe
that after a few more censuses, there won’t be “even one German” in the region
and consequently see no reason to press for a German autonomy. But one activist
says that she and her colleagues “won’t allow” the Germans to disappear and
will thus continue to press for institutions to keep that community alive.

Staunton, August 31 – A man from the
Belarusian city of Bobruisk has filed suit in a Moscow court against three
Russian news agencies seeking compensation for their use of the word ‘Belorussiya’
instead of ‘Belarus’ as the name of his country, something he says has damaged
his honor and dignity.

“I am a citizen of a state with an
official name – the Republic of Belarus,” he told the court, and calling that
country Belorussia is offensive to him personally and to all Belarusians. He is
asking for the court to order the news agencies to change their practice and to
award him 14 million rubles (380,000 US dollars) in damages (regnum.ru/news/polit/1842241.html).

In reporting
this story, Russia’s Regnum news agency says that the notion that Moscow
insists on the use of Belorussia is an idea being pushed by “a small group of
activists inside the post-Soviet republic who consider themselves not
Belorusians but ‘Belarusians’ and even ‘Litvins.’” That group opposes the use
of Russian there even though most residents speak it.

But the news agency also notes that
while it “usually uses the traditional Russian name ‘Belorussia,’ it not only
allows its authors to use the term Belarus but even has a project which bears
that name.But at the same time, the
agency says, it opposes “attempts to arbitrarily change the rules of the
Russian language.”

And Regnum says that Minsk has been
taking actions against Russian speakers in Belarussia, thus making many
Russians more inclined to use the Russian and not the Belarusian term. It notes
that in September 2013, a man was convicted for responding to a Belarusian in
Russian and on June 12th of this year, the Minsk Rus’ Cultural
Society was shut down.

The Russian agency did not say, but
lying behind this case – which the Moscow court will likely toss out – is a
much bigger issue: the view of Vladimir Putin and many Russians that there is a
“triune” Slavic people consisting of Great Russians, Little Russians and White
Russians.

By challenging this notion in a
Russian court, a Belarusian activist has seized the opportunity to focus
attention not just on these words but on the imperialist agenda lying behind
them.

Staunton, August 31 – The organizing
committee of the Russian Anti-War Movement says that “Russian stands at the
brink of catastrophe” following Putin’s introduction of regular Russian army
units into Ukraine, an action that threatens losses equivalent to the war in
Afghanistan, a major military conflict in Europe, and a fratricidal war.

Arguing that Vladimir Putin has
violated the Russian Constitution and committed state crimes, the group calls
on Russians to engage in acts of peaceful civil disobedience to force the
regime to change course, to demand that Russians not be sent to Ukraine to
fight, and to engage in political struggle until the war ends and those
responsible for it are removed from power (www1.kasparov.org/material.php?id=5401F6C1B8CCC).

It reminds Russian soldiers and officers that they have “the
complete right to refuse to obey” illegal orders, that they should not shoot at
their fellow Slavs,and that they should reflect on who is “your true enemy:
those who have converted you into cannon fodder.”

“To
the extent that the continuation of the fratricidal war will inevitably lead to
the disintegration of the country, the loss of state sovereignty and
territorial integrity, the group further calls on Russian military personnel to
“find the strength to fulfill their duty for the defense of the peoples of
Russia!”

And
to the Ukrainians, whom it calls “dear brothers and sisters,” the organizing
group says that “together with you we grieve about those losses which you have
born and continue to bear as a result of the criminal policy of the leadership
of Russia! We hope for the speediest end to the bloodletting on the
much-suffering Ukrainian land!”

Staunton, August 31 – Alarmed by Vladimir Putin’s dismissive comments about his country and by Vladimir
Zhirinovsky’s suggestion that Moscow will annex part of Kazakhstan after it
finishes with Ukraine, President Nursultan Nazarbayev says that Kazakhstan
could leave the Moscow-organized Eurasian Union.

The Kazakhstan president said that “if
the rules which were earlier established in the treaty are not fulfilled, then
Kazakhstan has the complete right to end its membership in the Eurasian Economic Union. Astana will never be in an organization which represents a
threat to the independence of Kazakhstan” (newsru.com/world/31aug2014/nazarbaev.html).

“Our independence is our most valued
treasure,” the longtime Kazakhstan said, something “for which our grandfathers
struggled. First of all, we will never give up our independence, and second, we
will do everything possible to defend it,” an almost direct response to Putin
and to Zhirinovsky.

Nazarbayev’s remarks are especially
significant because for more than two decades he has been pushing for a tighter
but rule-based organization of the post-Soviet states, arguing on many
occasions including in a book he wrote that everyone will benefit if everyone
lives according to the same rules.

By threatening to leave Putin’s
version of the Eurasian Union, the Kazakhstan president has sent the clearest
signal yet that he does not believe the Kremlin leader plans to play by any
rules regardless of what he says, and it reinforces the decisions of Minsk and
Astana not to go along with the Kremlin leader on Ukraine.

Consequently, whatever gains Putin
thinks he can make by his aggression in Ukraine are being undercut by Russian losses
elsewhere. That might restrain some leaders, but it could have the effect of
causing Putin to redouble his bets on the use of force, a step that if he takes
it could plunge the entire region into disaster.

Staunton, August 31 – Vladimir Lukin,
former Russian ambassador to the United States and human rights ombudsman, says
that Vladimir Putin will use the amount of force necessary in eastern Ukraine
to convince Kyiv that it cannot win and use the ensuing federalization of
Ukraine as a means of blocking that country’s joining NATO.

Lukin told Marat Gelman, a Russian
commentator, that Moscow will then insist on the federalizationso that in any
referendum on joining the Western alliance, each region would have the chance
to vote separately, that Donetsk and Luhansk would vote against, and that they
could thus end Ukraine’s existence in its current borders if Kyiv went ahead (nvua.net/opinion/gelman/Voennyy-plan-Kremlya--9686.html).

“No one in the Kremlin needs Donets,
Luhansk or Novorossiya” for itself, Lukin says. “To get the Donbas and lose
Ukraine would be a defeat for the Kremlin.”Indeed, in that event, “it would have been better not to have begun” all
this. And consequently, Moscow will introduce just enough force to force Kyiv
to negotiate on Russia’s terms.

Asked how anyone in Moscow could
think that Russia has not lost Ukraine given the current level of hatred, Lukin
responded by asking a series of rhetorical questions: “And how did the French
come to terms with the English after the 100 Years War? And how did the
Russians with the Germans?”

People in Moscow, he insists, are “thinking
in large blocks of time.” What seems impossible now may seem natural in 50
years. Moreover, he continues, no one in Moscow is worried about the
constitution.“What constitution? No one
intends to look at a piece of paper when history is being made.”

Asked why Moscow has dispatched its own forces into
Ukraine, Lukinsays that people need to “forget about” Donetsk
and Luhansk.“The task is to explain to
Poroshenko that he cannot win. Never.” And Russia will introduce forces sufficient
to force him or his successors whom Moscow may be able to install to recognize
that reality.

Moscow
will leave Donetsk and Luhansk inside Ukraine as sureties against Ukraine’s
joining NATO. Under the federalization Moscow will insist on, each region will
be able to vote on any decision to join a bloc, and thus Kyiv will face the
Hobson’s choice of joining NATO with a smaller country or remaining outside of
it with its current borders intact.

Lukin
says that he doesn’t see EU membership for Ukraine as a problem as long as it
takes place in a “synchronous” fashion with Russia’s relationship with
Europe.“Putin,” he insists, “is the
first European here.” The Kremlin leader doesn’t want to integrate with any other
group besides Europe.

With
regard to the United States, Lukin continues, Putin is “ignoring Obama,” but he
doesn’t want to push things so far that the Republicans will win in the coming
elections. “He needs Hillary [Clinton]. But in Europe we will not get into an
argument with anyone.”

Asked
how long this conflict will last, Lukiin says there is no reason to think it
will end soon. But Russia isn’t going anywhere.Ukrainian President Petr Poroshenko has reason to hurry but Putin doesn’t.“In general,” he adds, Moscow would like “as
an ideal” outcome “to return everything to where it was “under Yanukovich but
without Yanukovich.”

Any
fighting will reflect “the false certainty of the Ukrainians that they can win.”
When it becomes obvious that they can’t, Lukin says, then a settlement will be
reached on Moscow’s terms. He suggests that that end point is not so far off
and that “the most active in a military sense stage has already passed.”

In
presenting this interview, Gelman offers his own bitter observations: The
Kremlin is violating the Russian constitution in Ukraine and consequently “any
succeeding group of authorities [in Russia] can begin a judicial process
against all those who are involved in this.”

There will
be plenty of evidence for them to use.

“This means,”
Gelman says, “that Putin will seek to remain in power forever” or that if he
does pass power on to a successor, it will be someone like Sergey Shoygu who
has also “violated the constitution” and thus is implicated as well.That means that “no electoral activity has
any sense, nor do legal parties” and that those in power will never give up
power peacefully.

And that in
turn means, whatever happens in Ukraine that Russia faces a horrific choice in the
future: “either Putin eternally or blood in the streets.”

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Staunton, August 30 – Vladimir Putin
is often accused of wanting to restore the Soviet system or at least its core
values, but in fact, the Kremlin leader is interested in promoting the its “imperial-militarist”
element and not its “revolutionary” component, a pattern that has the effect of
limiting Russia’s ability to deal with the rest of the world, according to
Vadim Shtepa

In a new comentary, the
Petrozavodsk-based federalist thinker notes that as a result of this, Putin is
even more interested in promoting “the cult of ‘the Great Victory’” in World
War II than was Brezhnev, even though “it would seem” that that event is “ever
further receding into history” (spektr.delfi.lv/novosti/rimejk-imperii.d?id=44908252).

Putin’s
use of this “cult,” the commentator says, reflects the Kremlin’s understanding
that it is “an extraordinarily useful technology for political repressions and
territorial expansions” because “any opponent can with ease be designated ‘a
fascist’” and thus deserving of destruction.

“And
so,” he continues, “the post-Soviet evolution [of Russia] has led to a strange
ideological remake from the Soviet inheritance and the pre-Soviet imperial
tradition,” a combination that despite its obvious logical problems as “a
post-modern mix” has nonetheless “proven quite popular.”

Shtepa
traces the emergence of this particular approach to the past back to 1991.At that time, he writes, Russia was committed
to democracy and integration in the international community and explicitly
rejected the imperial, militarist and revolutionary characteristics of its
Soviet predecessor.As a result, the August
1991 coup failed.

But if
the coup failed, many of its values remained terribly widespread in Russia, and
as a result, Shtepa says, “democratic Russia suddenly began to reproduce the
archaic stereotypes of the Soviet empire,” one viewed by the world “not as one
of the new states arising after the disintegration of the USSR but as a direct
continuation of that same USSR only a little reduced in size as a result of the
loss of formal control over the territories of the former union republics.

As a
result, if 23 years ago, “Russia and the USSR were viewed as political
antipodes,” in the years since, they have increasingly come to be viewed as
closely linked and remarkably similar in key respects. And that shift has taken
place not only among outsiders but also among members of the Russian elite.

That
put Russia at odds with the other former republics of the USSR because “if they
began a new and real history of their own, then Russia, the political center of
which remained the Kremlin began an extension of Soviet history. And if at
first this ‘succession’ involved narrowly legal issues such as membership in
the UN, then later it became a matter of worldview as well.”

And
because “no historical border between the USSR and the Russian Federation” was
drawn, the two “began to be considered one and the same country,” even though
it was Russia’s Boris Yeltsin who precipitated the demise of the Soviet Union
by his actions at Beloveshchaya rather than any actions by non-Russian leaders
or nations.

Many
Russians today believe just the reverse and that shift in understanding “has
led to a situation in which ‘the near abroad’ in contemporary Russia is
conceived not as consisting of independent states but ever more as some kind of
‘separatist provinces.’”And that has
been particularly true with regard to Ukraine.

According
to Shtepa, ”the worldview sources of this conflict are rooted in the reborth
imperial myth of ‘a triune people’ (the Great Russians, the Little Russians, and the Belorussians),” a myth that Shtepa
argues is „incompatible with contemporary state-legal principles.”

Many in both Russia and the West imagined
that Russia could make „a real historical breakthrough” with de-communization,
Shtepa says, but that was clearly „insufficient.” Also needed was the
full-scale development of federalism. „But even the most democratic and
progressive Russian politicians traditionally did not view that as a priority.”

In
Shtepa’s telling, „the first major political event of independent Russia was
the signing in March 1992 of the Federal Treaty.” But even this document
contained within itself „fatal imperial aspects:” It was not concluded by equal
subjects but between „’the center’ and ‘the provinces.’”

And
18 months later, this document was superceded by a new Constitution which „gave
the president almost tsar-like authority and significantly reduced the
important of parliament.” And that bow to the past in turn in „a logical way”
restarted „the endless Caucasian colonial wars.”

Putin’s power vertical „also
completely logically arose from this restorationist trend,” Shtepa says.The Kremlin leader only had to eliminate the
elections of governors and restart „great power propganda that presented Russia
as ‘a beseiged fortress.’”Unlike
Yeltsin who despite everythign „distanced hmself from the Soviet heritage,”
Putin took to it, but only its „imperial and militarist” portions.

Among the contradictory products of this „imperial
remake,” Shtepa says, is „imperial federalism,” which is „not a principle of
the internal development of one’s own country but an instrument for the
destruction of neighbors.” Indeed, while any Russian can call for it abroad, it
has become dangerous to call for federalism at home.

But Russians in the age of Putin seem untroubled by this
or by another contradiction, Shtepa says. „For a long time already no one sees any
contradiction” in the fact that the tricolor, the flag of the democratic Russia
of August 1991 is raised with bands playing the melody of the anything but
democratic Soviet Union.

Staunton, August 30 – Vladimir Putin’s
decision to move toward a full-scale invasion of Ukraine shows that he “has no
other levers and resources” to achieve his will than to send in his soldiers,
but it also reflects the fact that what the Kremlin leader needs is “not victory
but war itself,” according to Kyiv political analyst Pavel Kruglyakovsky.

“By entering into a direct military
conflict with Ukraine,” the analyst says, “Putin is committing a fatal mistake”
because he will not be able to escape from the current situation “without
losing face,” something that he will do everything he can to avoid but that the
strength of Ukrainian forces will make impossible.

“The Russian army is far from as
powerful as the majority of people in Russia itself think,” Kruglyakovsky
argues. “Russia today is a colossus with feet of clay … the level of corruption
in Kremlin offices is an order higher than in Ukrainian ones … And when
generals steal, the men in the ranks suffer.”

“Today everything shows that the
Russian army is not so terrible and undefeatable as [Kremlin propagandist]
Dmitry Kiselyev suggests in his programs.This fact is beginning to be recognized in Kyiv; soon they will
understand it in Moscow as well. The zinc caskets are already beginning to
arrive in the depths of Russia.”

Kryuglyakovsky
is certain, Novy region says, that Putin cannot win a military victory in
Ukraine because “a fatherland war [which is what Ukraine is fighting] is by its
internal energy always stronger than the need ‘to fulfill one’s international
duty’” especially in the case of a 40-million-strong nation that is prepared to
sacrifice itself for its freedom.

“How many
military capable units can Putin send against the army of Ukrainians?” the
analyst asks. “Even today [the Kremlin leader] is having to deceive his troops
by saying that he sending them on ‘manuevers.’” And that raises an even more
fundamental question: “does the Russian president need a victory in the
classical sense?”

“What would he
do with the Donbas where all the infrastructure has already been destroyed by
the hands of [his own] terrorists? Putin does not need ‘Novorossiya.’ Rather he
needs” something else: “unstable Luhansk and Donets oblasts” within the borders
of Ukraine not of Russia.

In short, “Putin
needs not victory but war itself,” Kryuglyakovsky concludes, and one that he will
pursue by constantly changing the slogans and stated goals in the hopes that he
can intimidate some and keep others off-balance as he searches for a way out
for himself from the disaster he has caused.

Staunton, August 30 – Iosif Zisels,
the head of Vaad Ukrainy, the Association of Jewish Organizations and
Communities of Ukraine, says that neo-Nazi organizations from Russia” are
taking an active role in the pro-Moscow forces in eastern Ukraine, a reflection
of the fact that “Russia is infected with the ideas of revanchism, which is
very closely connected with fascism.”

Speaking in Kyiv, Zisels says that there has
existed in Russia “for more than 20 years a developed system of various
neo-Nazi fascist organizations which come to the fore during times of rising
tensions such as in Russia during the mid-1990s and [more recently] in Moldova
and Georgia (eajc.org/page16/news46921.html).

“Now,” he says, “they are operating
in Ukraine.”

The most powerful of them is Russian
National Unity under Aleksandr Barkashov. They have formations and symbols that
recall those of Nazi Germany.Zisels
says that he has information that Barkashov himself visited Ukraine in March
and May and is currently in Donetsk. Along with him in the pro-Moscow
formations is “fighting his son.”

In addition to Barkashov’s group,
the Ukrainian Jewish leader continues, other Russian fascist groups are now
operating in Ukraine as well, including the Eurasian Youth Union of Aleksandr
Dugin, the Other Russia of Eduard Limonov, the Black Hundred “and also
individual activists” not affiliated with these groups.

The Russian neo-Nazis “do not have their
own military units, but their members are included within other units,” a
situation that in many ways is more ominous because it suggests that the views
of such extremists are acceptable to the commanders of these entities and their
Moscow backers.

Moreover, Zisels points out, “Russia in
its interests is using also European neo-Nazis from various countries,”
including as “observers” during the Crimean “referendum.” At that time, 33 of
the 40 people Moscow brought in to support its position were “representatives
of neo-Nazi organizations.”

Since the beginning of Russia’s
intervention in Ukraine, Moscow propagandists have accused Ukraine of being “neo-Nazi”
or worse. But the facts on the ground as Zisels and scholars like Andreas
Umland have pointed out are that the neo-Nazis are to be found on the Russian
side.

Staunton, August 30 – Speaking in at
the Seliger youth forum yesterday, Vladimir Putin said that today as during
World War I there are people inside Russia who are seeking its defeat, a
resuscitation of Adolf Hitler’s “stab in the back” theory about why his country
lost that conflict and the basis for his attacks on various groups.

According to the Kremlin leader, “there
is the so-called extra-systemic opposition” --although Putin acknowledged that “this
is not a single whole” but rather a category which contains “various people.”
But his most intriguing and disturbing comments concern the past which he
clearly sees as a model (utro.ru/news/2014/08/29/1210857.shtml).

“The
Bolsheviks,” Putin said, “in the course of the First World War wanted their own
fatherland to suffer defeat. When heroic Russian soldiers and officers were
shedding their blood on the fronts [of that conflict], someone shook Russian
from within and pushed things to the point that Russia as a state was destroyed
and declared itself to be the loser.”

“This
was a complete betrayal of national interests,” Putin continued. While he did
not draw the parallel with the current situation in which many Russian
opposition figures oppose his invasion of Ukraine and even are cheering on the
Ukrainian forces against Russian ones, many of those who heard his words directly
or indirectly certainly did.

And
at the very least, Putin’s latest borrowing from the Nazi leader’s ideas is
likely to lead to the intensification of the ongoing crackdown against dissent
about his war. That means that those who do oppose the war are likely to face
arrest or other formers of persecution if they speak out.

the
idea that he is ready to shift some government functions to Siberia, a notion
that will do nothing to win him more support in Moscow and only encourage regionalists
to work against him (snob.ru/selected/entry/80346); and

a
willingness to accept the idea that each of the non-Russian republics should be
able to decide the title for their top leader, a reversal of his policy over
the last several years and one that will likely lead at least some of them to
demand that their presidencies be retained (business-gazeta.ru/article/112750/).

Not
only will each of these have consequences in specific areas, but their very
randomness seems certain to raise more questions about whether Putin has lost connection
with reality and that he is acting in the ways that dictators often do when
they assume that their power allows them to say and do anything they want
without reflection or coordination.

But even if this does not have an
impact in the corridors of power in Moscow, it is something that Western
leaders must take into account because it means that Putin may be becoming more
unpredictable and thus more dangerous, especially given his proclivity to lie
in the expectation that few either inside Russia or beyond will challenge him.

Staunton, August 30 – Vladimir Putin’s
gutting of Tatarstan’s 1990 sovereignty declaration has cost every resident of
that Middle Volga republic not only his or her rights and dignity but also has
meant that some 70,000 US dollars earned
from the sale of Tatarstan’s natural resources that should have gone to each of
them has gone instead to Moscow.

That is just one of the bitter
reflections about what Putin has done that is contained in an article on the 24th
anniversary of that declaration which occurs today by Rashit Akhmetov, one-time
head of Tatarstan’s Popular Front and now editor of “Zvezda Povolzhya” (“Zvezda
Povolzhya,” no. 31 (711), August 28-September 3, 2014, p. 1).

Since Putin began his attacks on the
sovereignty of Tatarstan and the other non-Russian republics within the borders
of the Russian Federation, Akhmetov says, approximately 10 trillion rubles (270
billion US dollars) has gone to Moscow from the sale of Tatarstan’s natural
resources instead of into the hands of the Tatars as the 1990 declaration
insisted.

But that financial loss is only a
small part of the deprivations Tatars have suffered because of Putin’s
policies, Akhmetov points out, and he provides a history of how the declaration
came to be and what has happened to its provisions over the last quarter
century by considering where Tatarstan has been on its anniversaries.

On August 30, 1990, Tatarstan adoped
its Declaration on the State Sovereignty of the Republic of Tatarstan.By this declaration, Kazan changed Tatarstan’s
status from an autonomous republic to a union republic and thus gave it the
right, under the Soviet constitution, to leave the Union and become an
independent country.

Tatarstan had tried to do so four
previous times: in the 1920s, in the 1930s, in the 1950s, and in the 1970s, but
its fifth attempt in 1990 was the result of a combination of circumstances that
meant, the Kazan editor says, that had the August 1991 coup “taken place
several weeks later, the history of Tatarstan would have been different:” It
would now be an independent state.

According to Akhmetov, “the parade
of sovereignties” of which Tatarstan was a part “was organized by the apparatus
of the USSR president who used it as a means of pressure on Boris Yeltsin and
on the recalcitrant Supreme Soviet of Russia.” Mikhail Gorbachev’s chief
operative in this regard was Gumer Usmanov, the former Tatarstan first
secretary.

Usmanov was Gorbachev’s chief
advisor on nationality policy, Akhmetov continues, and he in turn employed as
his assistant Oleg Moronov, a young intellectual, who as “the living embodiment
of the idea of Euro-Communism” in Tatarstan and one of those who succeeded in
overcoming the opposition of conservatives and installing Mintimir Shaimiyev as
Usmanov’s successor in Kazan.

“Thus,” Akhmetov continues, “Mikhail
Gorbachev to a large extent opened the way to the real sovereignty of
Tatarstan,” an opening that he says the leadership of the republic succeeded in
using about “70 percent.”An achievement
but one somewhat less than they and many others hoped for.

Many people remember that Boris
Yeltsin told the Tatars to “take as much sovereignty as you can swallow,” the
Kazan editor says, but in fact, it was Gorbachev not Yeltsin who promoted the
sovereignty declarations. And it was Yeltsin who worked step by step once he
became president of the Russian Federation to rein them in.

Initially, the anniversary of the
adoption of the declaration of state sovereignty was marked in Tatarstan as a
significant political event, one in which all leaders and thousands of people
turned out and in which military formations and VIPs from other parts of the Russian
Federation took part.

But with time, it lost that
importance and even was renamed the Day of the Republic as the content of the
original declaration was destroyed.Today, Akhmetov says, he has the impression that “the current
celebration has been changed into a not entirely comfortable show” and that
those invited from elsewhere have been given “unwritten” instructions not to
come.

More seriously, he continues, the
provisions of the 1990 declaration, even though they were ratified by referendum
and enshrined in the Treaty on the Delimitation of Authority between the
Republic of Tatarstan and the Russian Federation, are no longer implemented.The republic and its citizens now “do not
have any of the rights proclaimed” in it.”

Tatarstan and the Tatars do not own
the natural resources under their territory and so they have not enjoyed the
earnings from them. Moscow has taken almost all of these and left Kazan with
little.The Tatar language has suffered,
and Russian is used in 95 percent of the cases of official and educational
life.

Indeed, Akhmetov argues, with regard
to language, “the Soviet Union was much more democratic than contemporary
Russia,” and “despite all the efforts of the Tatar intelligentsia, the Tatar
language [even within the borders of the republic] remains a second-class
affair.”And no one now talks about
Tatarstan citizenship.

Given all this, the editor concludes
with obvious bitterness, it might be better or at least more honest if the
republic’s State Council would just go ahead and denounce the 1990 declaration
and rename the territory either “the Autonomous Republic of Tatarstan” or go
all the way and call it what some in Moscow want: “the Kazan oblast.”

Friday, August 29, 2014

Staunton, August 29 – “Voyennoye
obozreniye,” an online Moscow journal directed at the Russian military and
military analysts, has published today list of seven targets Russian forces are
likely to attack in the course of what it describes as “the probable future of the
war for Novorossiya.”

Of course, which ones the Kremlin
and Russian commanders will attack and in what order depends not only on Ukrainian
resistance but also on the reaction of the West to Moscow’s moves. But this
list itself says something about the nature and scope of Vladimir Putin’s
intentions in Ukraine (topwar.ru/57093-veroyatnoe-buduschee-voyny-za-novorossiyu.html).

While the fighting in eastern
Ukraine is intense and while not everything is going well for Russian and
pro-Moscow forces, the post suggests that it is nonetheless possible to speak
about “major breakouts” as it describes these actions or attacks as they would
certainly be perceived by the Ukrainian side.

The first target, the “Voyennoye
obozreniye” article says, is Mariupol, where Ukrainian forces have concentrated
themselves and from which they must be dislodged so that the insurgents can
continue to be supplied by Russia.

The second, it continues, is Volnovakha,
again a site where Ukrainian forces are concentrated and one that represents a
potential “place des armes for cutting off the Azov group of forces from the
main ones.

The third is Donetsk and especially
the airport there which currently is in Ukrainian hands. “The enemy must be
driven out of well-fortified places where it has already been sitting for two
to three months,” the Moscow publication says.

The fourth target is Debaltsevo
which must be taken by a flanking operation in order to destroy “the lion’s
share” of Ukrainian artillery and thus defeat the Ukrainian forces in the
region as a whole.

The fifth is the
Lisichansk-Rubezhnoye-Severodonetsk area, a naturally defendable position which
the Moscow journal says Ukrainian forces have been fortifying in the course of
recent weeks and from which they must be driven.

The sixth is Luhansk and the areas
around it to relieve pressure on the insurgents there.And the seventh and perhaps most important
are efforts to prevent Ukraine from bringing reserves into play by mobilizing
the population. The journal implied that military attacks must be coordinated
with the requirements of information war in this regard.

In the immediate future, the publication
says, there is going to be “a difficult struggle” for Novorossiya.” Indeed, it
says, “what is taking place now can be compared with the historic battle near
Moscow” during World War II.But just like
with that battle, it says, pro-Russian forces can change the course of this war.

And Moscow’s “Voyennoye obozreniye”
concludes that the insurgents can look forward to a better future if they do.
Those forces, it says, “need [only] resist for a couple more months, and then
the forces of the [Ukrainian] junta will become” a much less serious problem
for Novorossiya and Russia as well.

Staunton, August 29 – Given how
often Vladimir Putin lies, it may be a mistake to make too much of any of his
statements as an indication of where he is heading. But his use of the term “Novorossiya”
in his statement yesterday, the first time he has talked about that space
within Ukraine as a contemporary issue, is worrisome.

That is because it suggests that the
Kremlin leader is doubling down on his invasion of Ukraine and plans to create
a Transdniestria-like “partially recognized state” and “frozen conflict” in a
large swath of southeastern Ukraine regardless of Ukrainian and international
opposition to his aggression.

According to Ekho Moskvy journalist
Vladimir Varfolomeyev, a search of the records of Putin’s official statements
shows that Putin has used the term “Novorossiya” only once before, in the
course of his conversation with Russian citizens, and did so explicitly in
terms of history rather than current events (http://www.echo.msk.ru/blog/varfolomeev/1389552-echo/).

On that earlier occasion, Putin said
that Novorossiya included Kharkov, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Nikolayev and
Odessa, areas that he said “were not included within Ukraine in tsarist times”
but “handed over to Ukraine in the 1920s by the Soviet government.Why they did this, God alone knows,” the
Kremlin leader said.

But as a result of that Soviet
action, the “victories of Potemkin and Catherine II” were ignored and Novorossiya
disappeared. “For various reasons, these territories disappeared,” Putin said,
but the people there remained.”

(Although the Ekho Moskvy
commentator does not point this out and Putin certainly does not stress,
tsarist Russia was not divided into ethnic republics. There were Ukrainians and
Georgians and Uzbeks, among others, but there as not a Ukraine or a Georgia or
an Uzbekistan as an officially recognized entity.)

Now, as Varfolomeyev points out,
unlike in his Putin’s April remarks, “’Novorossiya’ has been transformed from a
subject of historical interest into a subject of policy. If of course,” the
Ekho Moskvy commentator adds, “words today still have any meaning,” given Putin’s
cavalier treatment of the truth.

Other Moscow commentators are also
discussing the meaning of Putin’s attachment to the idea of “Novorossiya.”One of the most thoughtful observations is
provided by Vitaly Portnikov, who suggests that Putin sees Novorossiya as
something he can seize and then create the kind of state he wants more
generally (grani.ru/opinion/portnikov/m.232462.html).

The Moscow commentator says that
Putin in some ways is like Stalin but in other ways is not. Like Stalin, he
works at night at least when it comes to Ukraine, but he does this not because
he prefers to sleep during the day as Stalin did, Portnikov says, but rather “simply
because then Obama isn’t sleeping.”

But unlike Stalin, he continues, Putin
didn’t take Russia away from his rivals but was handed it by his predecessor in
order to save it. Novorossiya offers Putin a chance to seize something and thus
make it his own in the way that Stalin made Soviet Russia his own via
collectivization, the purges and war.

“Therefore,” Portnikov says, “for
Putin, the first real country is not Russia but Novorossiya. He has taken it
out of the hands of its own population and is now creating it according to his
own image,” one that involves a situation in which “it is possible to shot,
kill and torture without punishment.”

“It is certain,” the commentator
continues, that Putin “already feels himself president of both these countries …
enormous Russia” which he did not seize earlier and “little Novorossiya” which
he is in the process of taking and in which he is showing exactly what kind of
a regime he would like to extend to Russia.

But Portnikov says, Putin is
mistaken in this. “In Russia he really is president,” but “in Novorossiya, he
is a night porter.”And “there where in
battles and tortures is being creating the ideal Putinist Russia, he is not
present.” But in some ways that makes his obsession with Novorossiya even more
disturbing than as an occasion of military aggression.

That is because, the commentator says,
it shows exactly what he wants to do in Russia itself and in any other
territories he can, like Stalin, “take away” from someone else.